The red carpet was rolled out again at Old Rochester Regional High School on Friday, March 2, for the school’s Ninth Annual Winter Blues Film Festival. Sponsored by the AFS club, the festival started promptly at 6:00 pm and concluded shortly before 9:00 pm. The proceeds from the ticket sales went to the club’s fundraising initiatives.
Attendees viewed nearly two hours of student-generated videos before watching the award ceremony. The audience was able to vote for its favorite video by cheering and clapping in order to distinguish the winner of this year’s Audience Choice Award.
The turnout for the event was on the light side for this year’s festival. This was unfortunately due to a miscommunication about the event’s starting time. However, the audience was large enough to vote for a number of different videos as its favorite.
Awards were presented to the best video in each of the categories. This year, categories were: Entertainment Short, Entertainment Long, Trailer, Music Video, Public Service Announcement and Special Effects. The Winter Blues Film Festival was grateful to its panel of esteemed judges, who were Randy Allain, Colin Everett, Kate Ribeiro, Judy Johnson and Paul Sardinha. They had the difficult task of presenting only six awards, with 34 videos to consider.
Hamlet in Five Minutes, an A.P. English 12 assignment created by Julia Dugan, David Friedman, Cayla Johnston, and Nick Nadeau, took the award for Entertainment Short. The video condensed Shakespeare’s drama into five minutes of pure comedy complete with gender swapping, updated language, a polar plunge and hilarious outtakes.
The winner for the Entertainment Long category was Taxi Driver, a film conceived and directed by Tim Gonsalves, who has participated in the festival in the past. Previously, he won awards in the Trailer, Commercial, Documentary categories. His winning video this year told the story of a Tri-Town taxi driver and his many attempts to find customers (and friends) in a small area.
The recipient of the award for the Music Video category was Mr. Sandman, directed by Sam Resendes. Resendes used the technique of stop-motion to film his music video, and it clearly was a hit with the audience as his music video also took the Audience Choice Award.
There were seven public service announcements submitted in this year’s competition. The PSA’s were the works of students taking the school’s Television Production elective, and they covered a wide variety of topics including: texting and driving, hurricane preparedness, hazing, concussions, and depression.
Bulldog Help, directed by Gonsalves, took the award for the Public Service Announcement category. His PSA was a spoof of the ASPCA commercials, as it encouraged Tri-Town community members to come to aid of the high school’s dilapidated wooden mascot standing guard at the building’s main entrance.
The Orb, directed by Kyle Costa, took the award in the Trailer category. The trailer was a prologue to his longer film, which will be available on YouTube in either March or early April. Costa is currently a student at the junior high school and will be attending Old Rochester Regional next year.
Finally, the award for Special Effects went to Alex Sousa with his video Claymation. Sousa entered a large number of special effects videos into the competition, amazing the audience with his range of talents. Sousa used claymation, stop-motion, green screen and regular animation in his eight entries.
Another important school event this past week was the National Honor Society Induction Ceremony on Thursday, March 1. The Old Rochester Regional NHS Chapter was proud to induct 47 new members; 44 juniors and three seniors. The Wanderer would like to congratulate: Scotlyn Adler, Joshua Bardwell, Matthew Beatty, Noah Beaulieu, Meagan Bell, Adam Bliss, Erika Boulay, Grady Branagan, Jessica Correia, Adam Costa, Edward Costa, Katelyn Cummings, Drew Cunningham, Douglas Gifford, Isabelle Gillis, Timothy Gonsalves, Morgan Hawes, Abigail Hiller, Jessie Hodges, Nicholas Johnson, Rebecca Johnson, Katelyn Kiernan, Zachary Mathews, Luke Mattar, Benjamin Mattson, Callum McLaughlin, Alexander Milde, Frederic Murolo, Kristin Nascimento, Cameron O’Connor, Abigail Offringa, Nicholas Pacheco, Marisa Paknis, Marisa Parker, Madelyn Pellegrino, Chandra Perez-Gill, Jacob Rioux, Abby Robinson, Alexandra Saccone, Kathryn Sebastiao, Alyssa Seifert, Quinn Stoeckle, Hannah Walsh, Janice Weldon, Lauren White, and Katherine Wilbur. Induction into the National Honor Society isn’t a single achievement; it is the culmination of many. All of this year’s inductees are recognized for their hard work.
By Anne Smith